


Five Days in Dry Dock

by sahiya



Series: Atonement [2]
Category: Doctor Who
Genre: Angst, First Time, Food, Hurt/Comfort, Illness, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2009-12-10
Updated: 2009-12-09
Packaged: 2017-10-04 07:49:52
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 5
Words: 13,059
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27710
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sahiya/pseuds/sahiya
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The TARDIS needs an overhaul. Jack needs a few days to put himself back together, physically and mentally. Even without a mortgage, it borders on domestic, but the Doctor's feet are mysteriously un-itchy about it.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Day One

**Author's Note:**

> This was written for the "Domesticity" challenge over at Wintercompanion on LJ. Many thanks to my beta reader Fuzzyboo.

Bellacosa. The Doctor would freely admit - if someone asked - that the reason he loved that particular planet so much was the way its name rolled out on his tongue. _Bellacosa!_ The sky was deep violet, shading to red at the horizon, and the water was a soft aqua green. The sand was white, the vegetation plentiful and rarely deadly, and there were, as the Doctor had told Jack, no natural predators, at least not on these islands.

 

It was a shame, then, that Jack wasn't in any shape to enjoy it.

 

It had probably been too much to hope that one night of relative comfort and a few antibiotics would cure six months of malnutrition, exhaustion, dehydration, at least one outright death, and a wasting infection of unknown variety. Jack lasted about fifteen minutes once the Doctor closed the door on Glaxon 5 before his knees buckled and he collapsed, catching himself on the edge of the console with a startled _oof_. "I don't feel so great," he'd said, sounding faintly surprised, right before his eyes rolled up in his head and he passed out.

 

The Doctor had put him to bed in his old room - not that it was recognizable as such. The Doctor's ninth self had called Jack's room the "Den of Iniquity," but this room was downright Spartan. Even the bed was transformed, from the four-poster monstrosity Jack had the first time (complete with discreet metal loops at all four corners) to a much narrower model with a firmer mattress. The walls were white and bare. The furniture was minimal, with sharp corners and clean lines.

 

It was a soldier's room, if more comfortable than any barracks. It hadn't told the Doctor much he'd not already known about how Jack had changed, but it was disquieting to see it so clearly demonstrated.

 

The Doctor sighed and closed the doors of the TARDIS on the beaches of Bellacosa. He had two patients to think about - the TARDIS, who desperately needed an overhaul, and Jack, who needed rest and time and looking-after. Once upon a time, the thought of being stuck in one place for four or five days while his companions put themselves back together would have made him itch. Even without a mortgage it bordered on domestic.

 

But he owed it to the TARDIS, poor put-upon old friend that she was, and he owed it to Jack. He'd promised himself that he would earn the forgiveness Jack wasn't ready to give, and this was where he'd start: by giving Jack all the time he needed before answering any mauve signals and getting them into a run-for-their-lives situation.

 

The first order of business for the TARDIS was to run a diagnostic on all the main life support systems. She could do that herself, but not in the Vortex, which was why he'd needed to find someplace to park her. He set her to that now, giving her an affectionate pat on the console and silently asking her to let him know when she was done. She nudged back carefully at his mind, a tiger nuzzling a housecat, and he went to see to his other patient.

 

Jack was sleeping still, tucked beneath a duvet. The Doctor leaned in the threshold to Jack's room and felt generally useless. He'd hooked Jack up to a saline and glucose drip and run a diagnostic on a blood sample as soon as he'd collapsed. There wasn't much left for him to do except twiddle his thumbs until Jack woke.

 

"Tea," he muttered to himself, pushing off the doorjamb. "Make tea. That always helps."

 

This was easier said than done. It turned out the Doctor had, without quite realizing it, accumulated an intimidating array of tea, but a brief rummage turned up disappointingly few appropriate for sick people. The Doctor, like most of his companions, was fond of the light chemical buzz provided by caffeine, but the last thing Jack needed was to be awake. There were a few dusty packets of something herbal, but the Doctor couldn't think of any companion in recent memory who might have bought them. He binned them and stood grumbling to himself in frustration until he had the sudden, overwhelming urge to open the fridge.

 

The TARDIS was preoccupied, so it was fairly empty. But on the bottom shelf, in lonely splendor, lay a piece of ginger root and a lemon. _Idiot_, he heard the ship thinking at him. Make it yourself.

 

"Fine then," he said aloud, "I will."

 

It was the work of a moment to slice up the ginger root. He boiled water in his electric kettle, then poured it into a pot with the ginger. He covered it and went to check on Jack again. Still sleeping. He detoured into the console room to check in with the TARDIS. Still self-diagnosing. He briefly considered stepping outside for a minute - well, five - just to see what the weather was like - as though it might have changed in the last twenty minutes - but even he knew that way lay probable madness. He needed to be patient. He needed . . . he needed to make toast.

 

He did it the old-fashioned way, in the oven, and ate one piece with butter and strawberry jam. The other two he buttered and put on a plate. By then the tea was done; it went into a two large mugs with a generous splash of lemon and a dollop of honey. The Doctor was just digging a tray out from the cupboard over the sink and wondering what he was going to do if Jack slept on for another three or four hours when the TARDIS alerted him that Jack was awake.

 

The Doctor felt a sudden surge of affection towards his ship. It wasn't easy, running a systems check and keeping track of her passengers at the same time, but she managed it.

 

Jack was moving restlessly under the covers when the Doctor nudged the door to his room open with his foot. He set the tray of tea and toast on Jack's nightstand, then seated himself on the edge of Jack's bed.

 

"What happened?" Jack asked, blinking up at the Doctor. "Was it lizards? Think I remember something - giant lizards, or dinosaurs. Were there dinosaurs?"

 

The Doctor frowned at him in concern, then rested the back of his hand against Jack's forehead. His fever had been high but not dangerous earlier. He felt warmer now, but then again, humans always felt hot to the Doctor, hot and cold being entirely relative. A life-threatening fever for the Doctor would be life-threatening hypothermia for Jack. But his forehead was damp, his eyes were glazed, and he wasn't making a bit of sense, all of which pointed towards a rising fever.

 

"None of the above, I'm afraid," the Doctor said, settling a bit further back on the mattress as it became clear Jack wasn't going to physically kick him off the bed. "You're a bit under the weather at the moment, that's all." He thought he could be forgiven for skimping on the details here; the blood analysis had given him a bit more information, but the Doctor thought _opportunistic infection_ was a lot less reassuring than _a bit under the weather_.

 

"Oh." Jack sighed, closing his eyes. "Yeah. I feel like shit." He slitted his eyes open. "Where are we?"

 

"Bellacosa. Do you remember the -"

 

"Beaches, right," Jack yawned. "Beaches and nothing to eat. No, nothing to eat _us_. Gonna work on the TARDIS . . . how is she?"

 

"All right for the moment. Running a self-diagnostic." The Doctor hesitated, then found Jack's hand where it lay, limp and damp with sweat, outside the covers. He laced their fingers together. "You'll both be right as rain in a few days."

 

Jack almost smiled at that. He looked amused, at least, or as much as he could with his eyes closed. "What do you do for the TARDIS when she's under the weather?" he asked, fingers tightening almost imperceptibly on the Doctor's.

 

"This, more or less. Park her someplace nice. Like any - well, almost any - well, at least sixty percent of other beings, she prefers warm and dry to cold and wet. Unfortunately," he added with a grimace, "the best place to fuel her up these days is Cardiff, which is never at any point in its history anything but cold and wet by any sane definition, and is actually intermittently under water, so that's a bit at odds. As for the rest - well, she does a lot of it herself." He smiled and reached out to pat the nearest wall. "She's self-sufficient, my TARDIS. But I do things to help her along."

 

"Like hold her hand?"

 

"Well, not -" The Doctor paused and looked down at their hands. "Er. In a matter of speaking."

 

Jack smiled faintly. "I'm sure she appreciates it."

 

"Ah. Well." The Doctor rubbed at the back of his neck. "Anyway. You should have fluids."

 

"I have fluids," Jack said, shifting his arm to indicate the bag of saline solution.

 

"Yes, but -" The Doctor gestured vaguely. "Hot fluids, tea and chicken soup, that sort of thing."

 

That apparently startled Jack into opening his eyes. He raised an eyebrow at the Doctor. "Chicken soup?"

 

"Of course chicken soup! It has all sorts of natural healing properties."

 

"You're going to make me chicken soup."

 

The Doctor crossed his arms over his chest. "Are you complaining?"

 

"No, of course not, I'm just surprised. It's a bit domestic for you, isn't it?"

 

"Ah, well . . ." The Doctor grimaced. "This me doesn't seem to have quite the allergy to _domestic_ the old me did. Had Christmas dinner with Rose's family and everything. Didn't get slapped, either."

 

"Huh."

 

"What 'huh'?"

 

"Oh, it's just . . ." Jack frowned. "You've changed. I mean, obviously you've changed, but I kept telling myself it was just the outside. But you've _changed_."

 

"So've you."

 

"I know," Jack sighed. "Believe me, I know."

 

"Anyway," the Doctor went on, a bit awkwardly, "I haven't managed the soup yet, but I have got the tea and a bit of toast. You should have some."

 

"I'd rather just go back to sleep."

 

"It's homemade ginger tea," the Doctor said, wheedling him a little, "with honey and lemon. I made it myself - well, the TARDIS helped, she came up with the ginger to begin with. You don't want to hurt her feelings, do you?"

 

Jack glared, but there was no real heat to it. "That's playing dirty." The Doctor shrugged. "All right, I'll drink the tea. No promises on the toast."

 

"Fair enough," the Doctor said, and helped him sit up. He handed Jack his mug and settled crosslegged on the end of Jack's bed with his own. He eyed Jack over its rim with worry. Jack looked as bad as he had when the Doctor had first found him by that well - but of course it hadn't been that long, less than two days, and Jack wasn't that sick, not really. He just _looked_ it. And probably felt it.

 

"Christ, I hate this," Jack said suddenly. He lowered his mug so abruptly a bit of tea sloshed out over his hand, but he didn't seem to notice. He tilted his head back and closed his eyes. "I feel woozy just from sitting up for five minutes. And you," he added, opening his eyes to focus blearily on the Doctor, "you, I don't know what you're doing, with the tea and the toast and the, the - I don't know. I don't understand you anymore." He closed his eyes again and slumped, mug tilting precariously. "My head hurts."

 

"Do you want a painkiller?" the Doctor asked, taking Jack's tea from him before he could spill any more. Jack didn't seem to notice.

 

"No, I just . . ." Jack sank down, yawning, into the covers, until they were up to his chin. "I'm going back to sleep," he said, eyes already heavy-lidded, voice drowsy. "Where're you going to be?"

 

The Doctor stood and gathered up the tea tray with the untouched toast and the half-drunk mugs. "Oh, around. Tinkering. I won't go far."

 

"Good," Jack mumbled sleepily.

 

The Doctor hovered, hopefully unobtrusive, until he was sure Jack was asleep. Then he retrieved a flannel from the bathroom and wet it under cold water. Jack's eyelids fluttered briefly when he lay it across his forehead, but he didn't wake. The Doctor paused, considering, then gathered up the tray and left.

 

The truth was, before the Game Station he'd have done this for Rose without a thought, but for Jack, certainly not. He'd have left that to Rose and limited his participation to making sarcastic remarks about the fragility of human bodies, even fancy ones with all sorts of Time Agency enhancements. But Rose was gone. If he and Jack were ever going to learn to live with each other without her, it had to be now.

 

The Doctor chucked the uneaten toast into the kitchen bin, then poured the rest of Jack's tea down the drain. He sighed.

 

Perhaps he'd have more luck with the chicken soup.


	2. Day Two

Jack woke disoriented and trembling in the dead of a night-cycle, dogged by the remnants of a vivid fever dream of his first death. His head was aching and heavy, he was freezing down to his bones, and the thought of getting up was almost unbearable, but he wanted company to chase away the dream. Usually the gentle hum of the TARDIS would have been enough to calm him, but the ship was eerily silent.

 

The Doctor had put him to bed naked. The TARDIS was never cold, but Jack was wracked with shivers as he tried to dress himself in the flannel pajamas and wool socks he found in his wardrobe. The saline pack strapped to Jack's arm was drained dry. How long had it been since the Doctor had looked in on him?

 

Jack pulled a blanket off the bed, wrapped it around his shoulders, and shuffled out. "Doctor," he croaked. The TARDIS floor felt like it was shifting under his feet; his eyes burned and ached with fever. He stumbled into a wall and leaned there, breathing through the dizziness and nausea. "Doctor?" he managed again, to no effect.

 

The first room he fell into was not the console room, as Jack had hoped, but the kitchen. A pot of something was on the stove, but it was stone cold and there was no Doctor watching over it. "C'mon, sweetheart," Jack mumbled, leaning on the counter next to some carrot peelings to try and stay upright. "Tell him where I am."

 

No answer. Nothing at all, not the slightest reaction. Jack's knees turned to water and he was forced to sit, sliding down the cabinets. The tile floor was cold. He wished he'd grabbed a thicker blanket, because now he was down here, he didn't think he was going anywhere. His head was swimming so badly, it suddenly seemed like a really good idea to lie down . . .

 

He came to in the dark. Dark, cold, empty. He was on the TARDIS - no. He was on the Game Station. The Doctor had abandoned him. No, he was on Earth. He was on Earth and he was dying, he was going to die like this, alone on the cold floor, and it'd be hours before anyone noticed. They had their own to think of. Last time he'd felt he belonged was with Rose and the Doctor and that - that -

 

He wished he'd died on the Game Station. He wished he was dead now. Dying hurt.

 

There were tears on his face, soaking into the blanket.

 

He went under again. This time, he came back with a gasp, lucid enough to know the burning in the back of his throat was bile and stomach acid. He rolled over and retched, painfully. His pajamas were soaked with sweat. He was cold, so, so cold. "Doctor," he moaned, but it was barely audible. He retched again. His head felt like it was about to explode.

 

He couldn't hold himself up anymore. He collapsed, trying only to avoid the pathetic little puddle of vomit. He had nothing left in him to throw up, but he felt so sick. Everything was spinning so badly, he could hardly tell which way was up, but at least he knew where he was. Or he thought he did. It looked like the TARDIS kitchen, but it was dark and silent. And not just night-cycle silent.

 

A chill that had nothing to do with his fever crept down his spine. The TARDIS was cold, dark, and silent. The Doctor hadn't shown up yet. If he were here, he'd know Jack needed him.

 

Which meant he wasn't here.

 

"Oh God." Jack tried to shove himself up and failed. He couldn't even _crawl_. "You _idiot_," he hissed at himself, then buried his face in the blanket. How hadn't he learned? How hadn't being left for dead on an abandoned satellite not taught him?

 

He couldn't help it - he began weeping helplessly. He huddled into his blanket and didn't even bother to pretend his heart wasn't shattering into a million tiny shards. Why do this to him? Why rescue him and make him think he was valued, even loved, and then abandon him again when he was sick and vulnerable?

 

He was still weeping when the Doctor found him.

 

"Jack?" Cool hands grasped his and pulled them away from his face. "Jack, what's wrong? Are you in pain?" The Doctor pressed a hand against Jack's forehead. "You're burning up. What happened?"

 

Jack stared up at the Doctor's wide eyes in disbelief. "Doctor?"

 

"Shh, it's all right." The Doctor smoothed the hair back from Jack's forehead. "Where does it hurt?"

 

Jack couldn't speak. He didn't know what was real and what was fevered hallucination. He'd hallucinated the Doctor before when he was dying, so heartsick with loneliness that his mind had made the Doctor - his Doctor, the old Doctor - walk into the medtent and sit on the edge of Jack's cot. It had made him feel a little better, until he woke from his second death and realized it wasn't real.

 

"Jack?" the Doctor said again, frowning. He held Jack's face between his hands. His hands were cold. Cold, cold, cold, against Jack's hot face. He had to be real. Jack was too exhausted for him not to be.

 

Jack squeezed his eyes shut. Probably it was too much to hope the Doctor hadn't noticed the tears. Definitely he'd seen the vomit. "I feel so awful," Jack confessed. Nauseated and disoriented and overwhelmed, as though the last six months had just all crashed down on him at once. He wanted to crawl into the Doctor's arms and stay there and just feel safe.

 

Except the Doctor wasn't safe. The Doctor had abandoned him and Jack couldn't trust him not to do it again. He wasn't safe. Jack wasn't safe.

 

"Oh Jack," the Doctor sighed. He sat down and pulled Jack's head into his lap, started stroking his hair. Jack swallowed a choked sob, ashamed of himself. "Blimey, you're hot."

 

"I couldn't find you," Jack whispered.

 

"I know, I'm sorry. The TARDIS had to power down for some work I was doing. I was at a very delicate place with her when you woke, and I couldn't get away. I'm so sorry."

 

"Oh."

 

"We should get you back to bed. Can you stand?"

 

Jack shook his head. He felt weak - weaker - with relief. "Don't leave," he said, grasping at the Doctor.

 

The Doctor frowned. "You need a new saline pack, and something to lower your fever. But," he added, when Jack only tightened his hold, "I'll stay until the TARDIS has everything back online. Shouldn't be more than a couple of minutes."

 

Jack nodded, but didn't loosen his grip on the Doctor's wrist. He was coherent enough now to know that as long as he was inside the TARDIS, he was safe. The Doctor might abandon him, but he would never abandon her. And yet, he couldn't seem to let go. "How is she?" he asked.

 

The Doctor sighed. "Not very well, I'm afraid. I honestly don't know how she managed these last few months - or why she didn't let me know she needed this. Usually she does, but this time she just sort of made do until I got around to noticing."

 

"Can fix her, can't you?"

 

"Oh yes. It's going to take time, though. Probably another three or four days. Until then we're grounded. Still," he added with a shrug, "not so bad. If you're going to be grounded, Bellacosa is as good a place as any, and it'll give you some time to get back on your feet."

 

"'m sorry I can't help," Jack said miserably. He'd promised he would, and now, not only wasn't he helping, he was taking the Doctor's attention away from his ship. "'ll try not to be underfoot. Should just leave me a bunch of these." He indicted the saline pack. "Can swap 'em out mys -"

 

"Don't be ridiculous." The Doctor's voice was soft. "You can hardly lift your head."

 

Jack sighed. "Not like it matters. Could die and I'd just wake up again."

 

"_Jack_," the Doctor said, so sharply that Jack opened his eyes. The Doctor cradled Jack's face in his hands, his mouth set, his eyes very serious. "Listen to me. _It matters._ I don't ever want to hear you say that dying doesn't matter. It does. It matters to you. It matters to me. Just because you come back -" He shook his head, apparently speechless for once. "It matters," he said again, sounding choked.

 

Jack wanted to argue, but his head was aching too badly. And then, before he could gather his wits, the lights flickered back on. The hum of the TARDIS was suddenly there again in the back of his mind. Comforting, familiar, constant. He closed his eyes, basking in it.

 

Jack expected the Doctor to get up and go to the medlab now that the TARDIS was back, but he didn't move. At last the Doctor said, "She's worried about you."

 

Jack opened his eyes. "Tell 'er 'm fine."

 

"Tell her yourself," the Doctor said, and patted his shoulder. "I'll be right back. She'll keep you company."

 

Jack nodded. He waited until the Doctor had left, then curled up on the cool tile of the kitchen floor, resting his cheek on a fold of his blanket. He sighed wearily - his mind felt fuzzy again, but he was warmer already. Maybe she'd turned up the heat for him. He reached out to press a palm flat to the floor. His eyes drifted shut. "Hey there, beautiful. Missed you. Thought he'd left. Should've known better. He'd never leave you."

 

_Or you._

 

Jack blinked, sure he'd imagined it. The TARDIS had communicated - sort of - with him before, but he'd never heard her speak. He'd assumed she couldn't - that she didn't have language, at least not in any way compatible with his puny human brain. But . . . well, he could always say he was delirious. Which, probably he was. "Left me before. He promised he wouldn't do it again. But I just can't -" His voice broke. "Can't trust him."

 

_He loves us. Both of us._ And then, as though the TARDIS were tired of trying to put everything into words, he felt himself enveloped by a warm, bright glow. He knew it was all in his head, knew he was lying on the kitchen floor under a too-thin blanket, but he didn't care. He felt safe for the first time since Satellite Five, as though someone were cupping him in the palm of her hand, holding him close to her heart. It was overwhelming, but he didn't want to escape it. He wanted to be overwhelmed, subsumed, consumed -

 

He was only vaguely aware of the Doctor's return. "Don't mind me," he heard the Doctor say, as though from a great distance, as he swapped out the saline pack, took Jack's temperature, and gave him an injection. He slipped a pillow beneath Jack's head as well, and tucked a heavier blanket over him. Jack tried to thank him but couldn't. He felt drugged, but not in a bad way. He could rest here, because he was safe, and protected, and, yes, loved. The TARDIS loved him. She wouldn't let the Doctor leave him again.

 

He had no idea how long he lay like that, cradled by the TARDIS, but at last he felt her drawing away. She had things to do, she told him gently. But she'd try not to turn the lights out on him again if she could help it.

 

Jack's return to full consciousness was slow. He surfaced, then slipped under again, into a delicious half-waking state. He drifted lazily, aware that the Doctor was doing things in the kitchen, stepping around and, occasionally, over him. At one point he got down on his hands and knees and cleaned up the mess Jack had made on the floor. But it was only when the Doctor crouched down beside him and laid the back of his hand on Jack's forehead that Jack sighed and blinked his eyes open.

 

"Hullo, there," the Doctor said. "Back with me?"

 

"Mmm," Jack said, stretching carefully. He felt better, he realized. Still exhausted and achey, but no longer incoherent with fever. His headache was almost gone. "Think so."

 

"Don't strain yourself," the Doctor advised. "I've never seen the TARDIS do that with a human before. I'm not sure what the side effects will be."

 

"She ever do that with you?"

 

"When she thinks I need it," the Doctor said. He smiled fondly. "She's usually right."

 

"Lucky bastard," Jack sighed.

 

The Doctor grinned. "Do you think you can sit up?"

 

"Do I have to?"

 

The Doctor appeared to consider this. "Well, no, but there's homemade chicken soup if you do."

 

Jack felt his eyebrows go shooting up. "Really?"

 

"I had to do something, didn't I, while you and the TARDIS were busy with each other. C'mon now, up you get." The Doctor slipped his arm beneath Jack's shoulders and helped him sit up against the cabinets. Then he straightened and turned back to the stove. Jack tipped his head back and closed his eyes. He felt he could sleep for about a year, but it wasn't a clinging, unpleasant exhaustion. He'd eat his soup and go to sleep in his bed, and when he woke up, he'd feel better. He was sure of it.

 

The Doctor finally handed him a mug of steaming soup with a spoon. Jack breathed it in: it smelled of ginger and garlic with a hint of sage, and it was teeming with vegetables, carrots and onions and green beans and celery. Jack lifted a spoonful and blew across it carefully before tasting it.

 

It tasted just as good as it smelled - better, even. Chicken soup wasn't a traditional remedy on the Boeshane Peninsula - they hadn't had chickens, for one thing - but somehow it still tasted like home. "Damn, Doctor," he said, swallowing, "I had no idea you could do this. You were obviously holding out on us before. Eggs, toast, soup, tea. A man could get spoiled."

 

The Doctor, settling crosslegged beside him with his own mug, shrugged. "You don't get to be almost a thousand without learning a thing or two. But the last me was -"

 

"Allergic to domestic, right." Jack spooned up more soup. He'd be a thousand, someday. He wondered if his skills at that point would include astonishingly good chicken soup.

 

"What did you talk about?" the Doctor asked, after several minutes of silent soup consumption. Jack looked up, puzzled, and the Doctor gave a brief nod that somehow managed to indicate the TARDIS.

 

"Oh," Jack said, glancing away. "Well . . ."

 

"Me?" the Doctor suggested, looking half-hopeful, half-worried.

 

Jack shook his head. "If I say yes, there'll be no living with you."

 

"There's not much living with me anyway," the Doctor pointed out cheerfully, then shrugged. "Forget I asked. It's not really any of my business."

 

"No, it's fine. We didn't talk much. Mostly she just . . . reassured me."

 

"Ah," the Doctor said, smile dimming a little. "Did it help?" Jack nodded. "Good, then." The Doctor cleared his throat. "Are you done with your soup? Do you want more? I think we have enough for a small army, or possibly a large one. None of the tricks I've learned included cooking for two, I'm afraid."

 

"Maybe later," Jack said, and yawned.

 

"Right, of course. You're tired. To bed with you!"

 

The Doctor chattered all the way down the hall - Jack paid no attention to what he said. He leaned heavily on the Doctor and concentrated on walking in a straight line. He was more than relieved to fall into bed, though he was afraid he did it with less than his usual artful grace. Not that it mattered very much at this point - even under the best of circumstances it was hard to be enigmatic and seductive once you'd been caught sobbing into your blankie, and Jack was out of practice.

 

_Severely_ out of practice, he realized suddenly. Nine months. He'd gone nine months without sex. For a moment, Jack simply boggled. Three months aboard the TARDIS - where the two people he'd wanted were off limits and everyone else just paled in comparison - and then six months on Earth. For most of that time, he hadn't cared. It had all just seemed like so much _work_. The fact that he was remembering now what he'd liked about it was probably a good sign, if a little inconvenient.

 

"Sleep well, Jack," the Doctor said, and briefly stroked his hair before leaving.

 

Jack sighed to himself. Make that _very_ inconvenient.


	3. Day Three

Maybe it was those strangely stretched out minutes he'd spent snuggling with the TARDIS. Maybe it was the Doctor's chicken soup. Maybe it was just fifteen hours of uninterrupted sleep. Jack didn't really know what made the difference, but his third morning on the TARDIS, he woke feeling almost human. He lay staring up at the ceiling, stretching each limb carefully before curling back up in the warm cocoon of his blankets.

 

Jack was grateful his collapse had happened here, and not on a bustling spaceport, but he was a former Time Agent - he knew how to stave off that sort of thing until it was safe. He'd have managed to find credit and a place to stay before collapsing into a useless puddle of feverish goo. He'd have made it through in one piece - well, Jack reflected wryly, it seemed he'd make it through anything in one piece, including being sliced into teeny tiny ones. Ending up ill and alone on Glaxon 5 would have been far from pleasant, though.

 

Not that this had been a day at the beach.

 

_Beach_. There was a beach out there, right beyond the TARDIS door. Sunlight, fresh air, salt breezes - well, maybe. The Doctor had called this planet 'Bellacosa', but Jack had never heard of it. Maybe the breezes were salty, maybe they were sweet. Only way to find out was to venture outside.

 

He didn't rush himself. He lazed in bed while the TARDIS slowly increased the artificial sunlight in his room, giving him the illusion of a long lie-in on a sunny morning. It felt like the height of luxury - it'd been nuclear winter his entire six months on Earth, and he'd never slept past five or six on his flat, thin bedroll.

 

At last his bladder forced him up. Jack perched on the edge of the bed and looked around, blinking. The Doctor had assured him that this room was his, untouched since Satellite Five, but it hardly looked it. Except that was the same wardrobe, and it was certainly the same shape with the same vaulted ceilings, and the door to the bathroom was in the same place. The rest of it was very sober and bare. Jack was relieved - he wouldn't have felt at home in his old room - but it was still unnerving.

 

He peeled off his pajamas, rinsed off two days of feverish sweat in the shower, and changed into a pair of jeans. They were much too big for him, but with a belt they'd at least stay up. None of the rest of his old clothes held much interest - except for the greatcoat, of course - but at the bottom of a drawer he found an old cotton shirt with long sleeves. He'd worn it under his clothes when they'd visited colder planets, but the old him would have never deigned to wear it where anyone might see it.

 

It was threadbare in places and smelled like - well, like it'd spent a year at the bottom of his shirt-drawer. Jack pulled it over his head and sighed, feeling the soft fabric rubbing lightly over his skin. Warm, dry, and comfortable. He wondered if he'd ever take those three things for granted ever again.

 

He wanted coffee, he decided. And he didn't give a rat's ass if it made him sick.

 

Someone, either the Doctor or the TARDIS, had read his mind. He stepped into the corridor and immediately smelled strong, fresh coffee, the best smell in ten worlds. He followed it down to the kitchen and poured himself a large cup from the coffeepot on the counter. The Doctor had been and gone, judging from loaf of bread left out next to the toaster and the half-full kettle. Jack tidied things up, then took his coffee and went in search of the Doctor.

 

The console room was empty, though the console itself was reassuringly bright, with floods of incomprehensible Gallifreyan streaming across its screens. Jack ran a hand along the console in passing and paused, just inside the doorway.

 

He'd come this far just fine, but now his hands were shaking. As long as he was inside the TARDIS, he knew he was safe. If he left, if he went outside, he could be left behind.

 

The TARDIS had promised him she wouldn't let that happen. The Doctor had sworn he'd never abandon him again. They had both done everything they could possibly do. Now it was up to Jack to trust them.

 

It was much easier said than done. If all Jack had had to go on was the Doctor's word, he might not have been able to. But he had the TARDIS as well, and he was pretty sure she wouldn't, maybe even couldn't, lie to him. And, well, he hadn't chosen to come along to hide in the TARDIS all the time, had he? Some companion he'd make, afraid to leave his bed.

 

Artificial sunlight was all well and good, but Jack wanted a beach. He reached out, grasped the doorknob, and turned.

 

It was bright mid-day. Jack blinked, dazzled by the reflection of sun on blue-green water, then stepped outside, his fear of abandonment forgotten in the face of open sky after days of confinement. He hesitated briefly, then kicked off his shoes and stripped off his shirt. He was tempted to strip his jeans off as well, but instead he just rolled them to the knee.

 

The sand was warm, almost hot, beneath his feet, and some fluke combination of gases in the atmosphere resulted in a light blue-purple sky that reddened as it approached the horizon, a perpetual sunrise. The water was cool, but not cold. Jack sat down, feet in the water and ass on wet sand, and just breathed.

 

"Be careful or you'll burn," he heard the Doctor say, right before he collapsed next to him in a tangle of long, thin limbs. He'd forgone the suit jacket and rolled up the legs of his trousers, even cuffed down the sleeves of his shirt. Jack caught a flash of pale wrist, lined with blue veins. "The atmosphere is pretty thin, lets a lot of UV rays through." He produced a tube of suncream and handed it to Jack.

 

"Thanks," Jack said, squirting a little onto his hand. He spread it across his nose and commenced rubbing it in.

 

"I take it you're feeling better?"

 

"Yes, much."

 

"'Much' like a hundred percent? Ninety?"

 

Jack considered this as he spread suncream down his arms. "Eighty," he decided at last.

 

The Doctor nodded. "Eighty isn't bad. 'Course, better to be at ninety at least before trying anything jeopardy-friendly."

 

"Is that your way of telling me we'll be here a few more days?"

 

"Maybe. Here, you have a bit . . ." The Doctor used his thumb to smooth in a streak of lotion across Jack's cheek. Jack blinked, startled by the casually affectionate gesture, then blinked again when the Doctor took the tube from him, squirted some onto his hand and said, "Let me get your back."

 

Jack certainly wasn't going to argue. The Doctor knelt behind him. His fingers were cool, especially against Jack's sun-warmed skin, but they felt good the way the cool water felt good against his feet. Jack closed his eyes and let his head fall forward. The Doctor slid his hands up and down Jack's back, long after he must have smoothed all the lotion in, at times rubbing firmly, at others almost tickling. Jack shifted, vaguely uncomfortable, then realized with a start exactly why that was.

 

He had an erection.

 

Eighty percent was good enough, it seemed, for his body to start bringing some of his less urgent biological functions back online.

 

One of the Doctor's hands pressed down, low on Jack's spine, and Jack jumped. He cleared his throat. "Thanks, Doc," he said, leaning away.

 

"Right," the Doctor said. His voice sounded a little high and nervous. "Just wanted to be thorough."

 

"You were," Jack said, hoping it didn't come out too dry. "Very."

 

"Good." The Doctor flopped down beside him again, feet in the water beside Jack's. Jack tried to take some deep breaths without being obvious about it, but part of him didn't want it to go away. He was turned on for the first time in - hell, probably four months. It felt amazing.

 

Fortunately, the Doctor seemed strangely uninclined to conversation. Jack glanced sideways at him, wondering if he dared ask how the TARDIS was doing. Not well, he guessed by the strained, unhappy tilt to the Doctor's mouth. His eyes were shadowed as well - while Jack had been sleeping practically round the clock, the Doctor apparently hadn't slept at all.

 

"You looked tired," Jack observed at last, carefully.

 

The Doctor sighed deeply and slumped. "The TARDIS . . . she needs a lot of work, and I can't leave it half done. I thought it'd be easier to push through and rest once I'd finished, but . . ." He grimaced. "It's taking longer than I'd anticipated."

 

"Let me spend some time with her. Go take a nap."

 

"Oh, I don't -"

 

"Doctor," Jack said firmly, "your concentration is going to slip, and that won't be good for either of you. I'll look after."

 

"Well . . ." The Doctor rubbed the back of his neck. "Just don't rewire anything without asking me first. And don't touch any of the temporal units, they're old and very finicky. And don't go into her engine room without asking her permission, it's rude. And don't -"

 

"Okay, okay, I won't!" Jack said, lifting his hands in surrender. "You used to let me work on her, you know."

 

The Doctor sniffed. "With proper supervision."

 

"I promise I won't break the TARDIS while you're sleeping. C'mon." Jack pushed himself to his feet and offered the Doctor a hand up.

 

The seat of the Doctor's suit was sandy. Jack shoved his hands in the pockets of his jeans to keep himself from brushing it off. His erection from earlier was still very much present. He'd never gotten to more than about half-mast, but he could tell it wouldn't take much. Couple strokes from his hand - or somebody else's -

 

Oh hell, make that even _thinking_ about a couple of strokes from somebody else's. A certain somebody else, in fact, who happened to at that moment be pushing his key into the TARDIS lock and yawning. Jack followed him into the console room and suddenly found himself revisiting every fantasy he'd ever had about sex with the Doctor. Back then, most of his fantasies had involved Rose, too, but right then all he wanted was Doctor's hands, those long, pale fingers, on him.

 

No, scratch that. What he really wanted was to shove the Doctor up against the console, go to his knees, and get him out of those trousers. Maybe not even all the way out, just tug them down around the Doctor's knees. He wanted to swallow him all the way down, wring gasps and moans and cries from him until he was helpless. Jack had loved that once, had loved using his mouth on his lovers, and he'd been great at it -

 

"Jack?"

 

Jack blinked. "Uh. What?"

 

"You just look a bit - glassy-eyed." The Doctor brushed his hand over Jack's forehead. "You don't feel warm."

 

"I'm all right." _Glassy-eyed_. Jack could only hope he hadn't been drooling. He swallowed. "Go on. I'll be around. Might go for a swim. Spend some time under the console - don't worry! I won't rewire anything," he added hastily at the Doctor's frown.

 

The Doctor still looked skeptical, but he went with only a single backwards glance. Jack waited until he'd gone, then sagged against the railing. He raked a hand through his hair. "Well. Isn't this just . . . fantastic." His libido couldn't have waited until they were somewhere convenient, where he might have hired a professional. He could have paid a handsome, brown-haired bloke to dress up in a pinstriped suit, or a severe man with big ears to wear a leather jacket. But Jack suspected it wouldn't have mattered. Eyes opened or closed, he would have known the difference. The Doctor was the Doctor.

 

It was just one more thing to pile on top of everything else. Jack couldn't trust him, and he hadn't forgiven him. Not by a long shot.

 

But fuck it all if Jack didn't want the Doctor so bad it hurt. He always had. The Doctor had to know it - Jack hadn't exactly been subtle about it during his first stint on the TARDIS. But he wasn't interested - in Jack or men or humans more generally, Jack never did figure it out. Maybe without Rose around, Jack could bring the Doctor around to his way of thinking -

 

Except even if he did, there was still the matter of trust. Or lack of it. Jack had slept with a lot of people he hadn't trusted, true, but none of them had been someone he cared about.

 

Goddammit it. "Give me a minute, beautiful," Jack said, resting his hand briefly against the TARDIS wall. He went back outside, unbuttoning his jeans and shoving them down to lie puddled in the sand beside his discarded shoes and shirt. He waded in again, past his knees, then up to his waist. The water was cool against skin warmed by sun and arousal, but not cold enough to calm him down. That was fine with Jack. He didn't want to calm down.

 

The water hit his shoulders, then his chin, and then his feet left the sandy bottom. He flipped over onto his back and thought about the Doctor's hands stroking down his back to the base of his spine. In his mind, the Doctor's hand drifted lower, to the cleft of his ass, even while his other hand reached to cup Jack's cheek. He imagined the Doctor would taste like tea and something strange. Something ancient and alien, bittersweet on Jack's tongue.

 

Jack was stroking himself now, breath coming faster. It didn't take much after so long. He imagined the Doctor helpless and writhing beneath him, that brilliant mind taken out of his body by Jack's hand, Jack's mouth, Jack's cock - Jack's cock inside of him -

 

Jack gasped and came.

 

Beautiful. It wasn't the best orgasm he'd ever had, and wanking was never as satisfying as having a partner, but it was beautiful. He drifted in the afterglow, held up by the salty water. He felt drowsy and content, pleased with himself and his world in a way he hadn't felt in a long time. Sex meant a lot of things to Jack - it'd been a tool, a form of manipulation, but he'd also taken real pleasure in it. As jaded as he'd been when he'd met the Doctor and Rose in 1941, Jack had loved sex.

 

And now he had it back.

 

Perhaps he should have waited, shared this moment with someone, but somehow it felt right to do it on his own. And anyway, Jack reflected, flipping over to start the swim back to shore, the only person he'd have wanted to share it with was out of bounds.


	4. Day Four

"Ow!" Jack swore and wrung his hand. The tips of his fingers were burned - not blistered, but they were definitely about to be red and throbbing. "Damn."

 

"Careful," the Doctor called from deep within the engine room of the TARDIS. Jack rolled his eyes.

 

"I was careful," he grumbled.

 

"Obviously not careful enough," the Doctor said, poking his head out. His hair was even more tousled than usual and he had a smear of grease across his forehead. "She's sensitive."

 

Something about his tone made Jack frown. "Is she in pain?"

 

The Doctor glanced up and around. "Not as such. But letting anyone - even me - go poking about in her most personal bits is a bit disconcerting." He sighed. "I don't know, Jack, maybe you'd better leave this to me. Can't have you getting zapped every two minutes."

 

Jack wanted to argue. With the exception of a few minor repairs in the console room the day before, he hadn't been any help at all with the TARDIS. But his stinging fingers disagreed. "Are you sure?"

 

"Yeah," the Doctor said, wiping his forehead with his wrist and smearing the streak of grease all the more. "Don't look for me for a bit, though. Five or six hours at least."

 

"Right," Jack said, shoving himself to his feet. "Anything else I can do while you're busy in here?"

 

"Nah, one thing at a time is better for her and us." The Doctor raked a hand through his hair, making it stand on end. Jack very nobly resisted the urge to flatten it for him, or snog him senseless. "Could stand to get out for a bit, though. Think she's sick of me. Maybe once I'm done we can go for a swim?"

 

The Doctor, swimming. Presumably at least half-naked. Jack's brain shorted out.

 

"We could," he said, trying to keep his voice even. "Or we could have a picnic."

 

"A picnic!" the Doctor said instantly, bouncing on his heels. "I haven't had a proper picnic in ages. Sandwiches and salads and Pimm's!"

 

Jack wrinkled his nose. "Pimm's? Christ, Doctor, for someone who isn't actually British -"

 

"Don't you say one word against Pimm's," the Doctor said warningly. "Not one."

 

"Fine, fine. I'll make sure there's Pimm's. Though really, I guess if you want that, you'll have to talk to Herself." Jack nodded to indicate the TARDIS. "If she's speaking to you by the end of this."

 

The Doctor sighed. "Isn't that the truth. Well, the sandwiches shouldn't be too hard, I know there was bread in the cupboard. And there's still soup left."

 

There would be soup left for about three weeks, Jack suspected, but he'd eaten nothing but soup and toast for going on four days now and he wanted something else. Sandwiches were all right, but Jack wondered if he might not come up with something more creative. He'd never been much of a cook, but after months of thin stews that never satisfied and the occasional gruel, Jack found himself slightly obsessed with food.

 

"I'll see what I can come up with," Jack said, and left the Doctor to the TARDIS.

 

The TARDIS kitchen was pretty standard - breakfast nook, gas stove, sonic dishwasher, and several dozen gadgets the Doctor had picked up on random planets. A more hopeless technophile Jack had never known, but the Doctor could never be bothered to do much with the stuff once his initial fascination wore off. Jack pushed something with too many dials and displays to possibly be useful out of the way and opened the refrigerator. Staples, but not much else, and a distinct lack of strawberry jam. The TARDIS was annoyed.

 

It had taken Jack a good three or four weeks during his first stint on the TARDIS to understand how her kitchen worked. They usually did a bit of shopping wherever they landed - provided, of course, they weren't immediately tossed in jail or busy fomenting dissent against the local dictator - but then, once they were back on the ship, there were always things in the cupboards they hadn't bought. Once he'd been there a few days, he noticed particularly strange things showing up, namely a butter-like spread made from a fruit native to the Boeshane Peninsula, a staple of Jack's childhood. They hadn't gone anywhere near the Boe since he'd joined up, and Jack had never seen it anywhere else.

 

It puzzled him enough that he finally asked the Doctor, who shrugged, stuck his head out from beneath the console, and said, "You wanted it, yeah?"

 

"Not really - I mean, it was my favorite thing as a kid, but I haven't had it in years. Haven't even thought about it."

 

"Sure, but deep down, when things are bad, that's what you want, right? Like Rose wants tea and toast with Marmite. Comfort food." The Doctor ducked back under the console, like that closed the issue.

 

"But," Jack frowned, "where the hell'd it come from? Did I sleep through a trip to the Boe?"

 

"Nah, TARDIS is telepathic. She knew you wanted it, so she gave it to you. And don't go asking me how," he added, before Jack could even open his mouth, "unless you're willing to sit through the six-dimensional temporal physics lesson that goes with the answer."

 

Jack hadn't been. He'd let it go and kept on eating whatever the TARDIS threw his way. Now, though, he wished he'd bothered to pay attention. "C'mon, sweetheart," he said, stroking a wall, "don't be mad at him. You know it's for the best." He thought he could just barely detect a faint sniff of indignation, but she didn't seem pissed at Jack himself now that he wasn't poking around clumsily in her engine room. "I can't go feeding him bread and butter, now, can I? No one was ever seduced by bread and butter."

 

There was a flicker of amusement from the ship, and then a door Jack had never noticed before creaked open. "Ah ha," he said, and pushed it open to reveal the biggest walk-in freezer he'd ever seen. Jack's eyebrows rose - and kept rising as he realized exactly what was staring him in the face.

 

It was a goah fish.

 

Goah were the ugliest creatures Jack had ever - okay, no, after fifteen years with the Time Agency and four months traveling with the Doctor, that wasn't true. But without a doubt they were in the top five. They had huge, bulging eyes, gaping mouths, and three rows of uneven, serrated teeth. They were the color of toxic mud and absolutely enormous, with sharp, fanning fins known to slice open the arteries of unsuspecting swimmers. They were, in a word, hideous.

 

And they were delicious.

 

"You're _brilliant_," Jack told the TARDIS, and hefted the fifty pound goah into his arms to lug back to the kitchen.

 

Jack had had goah twice a year at most when he was a kid. His father always took him and his little brother Grey out fishing just before the new year, since they could never afford to buy goah at market. The expedition usually lasted a couple days, and some years they came home empty-handed. One year they almost came home without Grey, when the goah on his line was heavier than he was and damn near pulled him in. A goah with a hook in its mouth was vicious.

 

A dead goah was still a pain in the ass. The fins had to go, and the scales, and the bones. Getting rid of all that was a messy, smelly process, not to mention potentially dangerous, thanks to the spines and the sharpness of the scales. But it would be worth it once Jack had himself two nice goah steaks, ready for grilling out on the beach. Goah was popular as a delicacy all along the coast and every hamlet had its own traditions, but the Boe was known for its spicy, sweet goah sauce. Jack hoped he still remembered his father's recipe.

 

The Doctor was just going to have to make do without his Pimm's though. Pimm's with goah would be a travesty. It wanted white wine, not too dry, to bring out the richness of the flavor without overpowering it. Jack's mouth watered in anticipation, and he hadn't even beheaded the thing yet.

 

Four and a half hours later, Jack had sliced his hand open twice on goah spines, the kitchen had an unpleasantly briney smell to it, and he was revisiting the ancient Earth adage, _Be careful what you wish for, jackass_. But he had the two promised goah steaks, plus a mountain of delicate white meat he'd spent hours extracting from the harder-to-reach recesses of the goah skeleton. Those bits he molded into patties for easy transport and grilling before heading off in search of firewood. There were high-tech grills from several different millennia of human history on board, of course, but New Year's wasn't New Year's on the Boe without a bonfire.

 

The kindling the TARDIS provided went up fast and burned hot. Jack sat on a blanket in the sand next to the cooler full of goah and poked at the fire as the sun went down, the sky overhead glowing in streaks of ruby and emerald in one of the most spectacular displays Jack had ever seen. He breathed in fresh salt air, tinged with woodsmoke, and breathed out a cloud of white vapor that hung briefly before vanishing on a chilly breeze.

 

The Doctor had hurt him. But Jack would only hurt them both if he went on like this. If Jack wanted to be the Doctor's hand to hold, he had to trust him not to let go.

 

The fire had burned down enough for Jack to set up the grill by the time he heard the TARDIS doors open and shut. "This doesn't look like sandwiches and salads and Pimm's," the Doctor observed.

 

Jack looked up. "Way better. Have a seat." The Doctor did - collapsed, actually, onto the blanket - and sprawled out, rolling onto his side to prop himself up on his elbow. Jack, kneeling in the sand next to the grill, was reminded of a disgruntled house cat. "Is she still speaking to you?"

 

The Doctor sighed. "Not as such, no. Not sure what to do about it, either. But I think we might almost be done. A few last things to do tomorrow and then -"

 

"The whole of time and space!" Jack finished, grinning.

 

The Doctor returned it, with interest. "You're in a good mood." He pushed himself up to peer at the grill. "What exactly are you feeding me?"

 

"You'll see. Wine? And no, Pimm's is not an option," he added before the Doctor could ask.

 

"Oh, fine," the Doctor said, sitting up to accept a glass from Jack. "Is there time for a swim before it's ready?"

 

"You'll freeze." Jack himself was wrapped up in his greatcoat and sitting as close to the fire as he could without risk of anything catching on fire. The Doctor had his coat as well, though Jack suspected that was mostly for show.

 

"Only if I ran a highly insensible thirty-seven degrees," the Doctor sniffed. "As I run a much more moderate fifteen, it's downright balmy."

 

Jack shrugged. "Suit yourself. You've got a few minutes."

 

"Brilliant." The Doctor bounded to his feet, nearly knocked over his wine glass, and started to strip. Jack gaped briefly, caught himself, and poked busily at the fire. Not that he could stop himself from watching out the corner of his eye. He caught a glimpse of pale flesh, though not enough to answer his long-standing curiosity about whether the Doctor had two of anything besides hearts. He heard the Doctor splash into the water and looked up just in time to see him slice cleanly into a low, oncoming wave. Jack sighed, faintly exasperated with himself. He'd never much gone in for unrequited love - a nice, straightforward shag was more his speed. It was one thing to make jokes to the TARDIS about wanting to seduce the Doctor; it was another to make an idiot out of himself trying to do it.

 

Goah steaks were best seared, otherwise they tended to dry out. Jack flicked a bead of water onto the grill and watched it sizzle, then laid the steaks out on the grill. He gave the sauce a thorough stir while he waited, then flipped the steaks over. "Doctor!" he called.

 

"Right, coming!" the Doctor returned out of the darkness. He splashed up on shore while Jack took care of dishing out the steaks on plates, drizzling sauce over them as artfully as he could manage. "Hmm."

 

Jack looked up and blinked. Only one, then. That was almost disappointing. "Forgot your towel?" he asked mildly.

 

"Well . . ." The Doctor looked sheepish. Wet, sheepish, and - with his hair flattened down like that - more than a little bug-eyed. Jack only just managed not to laugh. "Didn't really plan ahead here, no. Don't want to put my clothes back on like this either, they're sandy. I don't suppose you're feeling chivalrous."

 

Jack rolled his eyes, but stood to shrug out of his great coat. "Whatever happened to 'it's downright balmy'?"

 

"Well, it was, when I was dry," the Doctor said, wrapping the coat around his torso. It dwarfed his thin frame, especially in the shoulders. Bug-eyed or not, Jack wasn't sure he'd ever seen anything more erotic in his life. Goddammit, he was jealous of his _coat_. "Will you tell me what we're eating now?"

 

Jack handed the Doctor his plate. "You ever heard of goah fish?"

 

"Yep, ugliest creatures in ten worlds, the goah - well, except for Sontarans. Sontarans might give the goah a run for their money." The Doctor stopped and frowned, glancing down at his plate. "Don't tell me . . ."

 

"They're a delicacy on the Boe," Jack said, "and it took me six hours to put this together, so if you know what's good for you -"

 

"Right," the Doctor said, smiling gamely. He paused mid-chew after the first bite. "Blimey," he managed through a mouthful of goah.

 

"Good?"

 

"Brilliant! Why've I never had this before? Tastes a bit like crab - you ever had crab? Not much of it on the menu in 1940s Britain - or any other Britain, actually. That sauce'll take the roof of your mouth off, though."

 

Jack grinned. "Better than sandwiches and salads and Pimm's?"

 

"Oi, the beauty of Pimm's is that it goes with everything! But -" the Doctor chased a bite of goah with a sip of wine - "this is pretty spectacular. Did it really take you six hours?"

 

"Close to. Goah are tricky little buggers. Or big buggers, I guess. The one the TARDIS gave me was about five feet long."

 

"Oh? That mean there's more?"

 

"Tons of it. And it freezes well."

 

"Brilliant."

 

In the end, there wasn't as much fish leftover as Jack had thought there'd be, because the Doctor stuffed himself. Jack watched him eat with unabashedly domestic pleasure. Food was fantastic, he decided. He should learn to cook more of it. He had the feeling the Doctor would be appreciative.

 

When the Doctor finally finished, Jack lugged the cooler with the uncooked fish back into the TARDIS to stash in the walk-in freezer. The TARDIS was quiet, sending him a mere flicker of sulky greeting, and a quick glance in the fridge revealed a continuing lack of jam. More worrisome was the absence of tea in the cupboards. Jack grimaced, patted a wall in sympathy, and went back out.

 

The Doctor was sprawled on the blanket, staring up at the sky, still wrapped in Jack's great coat. "Aren't you cold?" Jack asked, dropping down beside him.

 

"Nah. Well. A bit." The Doctor turned his head and smiled. "You could come share some of your thirty-seven degrees with me, you know."

 

As though Jack would ever refuse _that_ invitation. He scooted over and lay down, wrapping his arms around the Doctor. After a moment he reached back and pulled half of the blanket over them. The Doctor made a vague noise of approval and snuggled closer into Jack's chest.

 

"Warmer?"

 

"Mmm."

 

Jack propped himself up on one elbow, careful not to dislodge the blanket. The Doctor's eyes were closed, the lashes dark against skin made pale by starlight. The moment felt right. "Doctor," he said quietly.

 

The Doctor opened his eyes. "Jack."

 

"I have something tell you."

 

The Doctor frowned, a little warily. "What?"

 

Jack bent his head and breathed in the scent of the Doctor's skin and salt from the sea. "I forgive you."

 

The Doctor turned his head to look at Jack, eyes wide. "Jack . . ."

 

"I forgive you," Jack said again, softly.

 

"Oh, Jack." To Jack's confusion, the Doctor looked sad. "You shouldn't."

 

"What?"

 

The Doctor lifted a hand to stroke Jack's face with his fingertips. "You shouldn't forgive me. What I did to you - it's not forgiveable. I'm sorry I even asked you before, I had no right. You have no idea, the things I've done, the things I could do, and leaving you behind - that isn't the worst of it. You shouldn't forgive me, Jack."

 

"That isn't your decision. It's mine. I won't punish you just because you want me to."

 

"But -"

 

"I forgive you," Jack said, mercilessly.

 

Something in the Doctor's face cracked. "Why?" he whispered.

 

"Because . . . because I want this life, here, with you." Jack swallowed past the lump in his throat. "It's all I've ever wanted, ever since I knew it was possible. And because . . . well. You know why else."

 

"I do?"

 

Jack gave a brief laugh. "Come on, Doc. Not even _you_ are that oblivious." He reached for the Doctor's hand, laced his fingers through his, and clasped it to his heart. "That's why."

 

"Oh," the Doctor breathed. "Yes. I, er, did know - well, I suspected - I mean -"

 

"You don't have be nervous about it. I don't expect anything from you."

 

"No, that's not -" He sighed. "What if - what if I wanted -" The Doctor paused, licking his lips. "It's been a long time for me. A - a very long time. But yesterday, when I was touching you, I . . . I felt something. I don't think I'd have ever let myself with anyone else, but with you . . ." He exhaled a little shakily, but when he breathed in again he seemed more certain. "Jack. Kiss me."

 

Jack had never been able to refuse an order from the Doctor, especially not when he'd been aching for him all night. He bent his head and kissed the Doctor, a bare brush of lips. The Doctor shivered and gripped Jack's wrist, lifting his head to deepen the kiss. Jack raised his eyebrows, then smiled against the Doctor's lips. He hadn't expected the Doctor to take the lead, but he definitely didn't mind.

 

They lay like that, trading soft kisses back and forth, until Jack lost track of everything except the warm little world the two of them had created inside the safe, dark space of their blanket. Jack nibbled at the Doctor's lower lip and just barely stroked his tongue inside the Doctor's mouth. The Doctor's breathing quickened, his grip on Jack's wrist tightening almost to the point of pain. Jack dropped his head and traced his lips from the indentation behind the Doctor's ear to the pulse point on his neck. He felt it flickering beneath his lips, the rapid double-time of the Doctor's hearts. The Doctor sighed, and a warm glow of happiness, like he'd felt when the TARDIS had held him, enveloped Jack from the top of his head to tips of his toes.

 

He laid his head in the crook of the Doctor's neck. "We could stay out here tonight," he murmured.

 

The Doctor stiffened - and not in the way Jack was hoping for. "Jack . . ."

 

"We don't need to do any more than this," Jack said, hiding his disappointment behind a kiss.

 

The Doctor nodded. "Maybe that's a good idea. Think the TARDIS hid my bedroom." He sighed. "She's furious with me, Jack."

 

"That was my impression," Jack said, lifting himself up so the Doctor could wriggle around and get comfortable. "She got rid of all the strawberry jam."

 

The Doctor stared at Jack in alarm. "She did? Oh dear. But she has to know, doesn't she? This is for her own good. I couldn't just go on letting things get _worse_."

 

Jack shrugged "Maybe that's not what she's mad about."

 

"What then?"

 

"How long did it take you to notice that she needed it, Doc? And then, how long did it take you to do something about it? And if you'd done something about it earlier, would it have been as uncomfortable for her?" The Doctor mouthed wordlessly. Jack shook his head. "She knows you love her. She told me so. But you have to take better care of us, Doc."

 

The Doctor lifted a hand to stroke Jack's face. "I am trying."

 

Jack kissed the Doctor's palm. "I know you are."


	5. Day Five

Jack woke alone, tucked beneath his great coat. He sat up, watched the sun finish rising, and thought about nothing in particular - not about where they were going to go when the TARDIS was fixed, or what he was going to eat for breakfast, or even how he was going to convince the Doctor to bloody shag him already. Once the red and blue streaks had faded, he tossed off the blanket, shrugged into his coat, and stood. He brushed sand off his trousers and set off up the beach towards the TARDIS.

 

He was fitting his key into the lock when he realized that he had not once worried the Doctor might have left without him. Nor had he immediately looked to make sure the TARDIS was still there. He had simply taken it on faith that she would be.

 

The console room was empty, but the flicker of greeting from the TARDIS was much less sulky and the console itself was brighter. Jack wondered if the Doctor had done something in particular that morning to get himself back in her good graces, or if she was simply feeling more herself. Either way, it didn't much surprise him to find the Doctor standing at the counter in the kitchen, munching toast smeared with strawberry jam and slurping tea out of his favorite mug.

 

"Good morning," Jack said, making for the coffeepot.

 

"Good morning," the Doctor said, even more chirpily energetic than usual. "Toast? Jam? Cereal? Milk? Leftover goah? We seem to have everything."

 

"I take it you're back on Herself's good side?"

 

"Ah, er, yes, a bit." The Doctor smiled sheepishly over the rim of his teacup. "I took what you said under advisement and, well, groveled. Promised her regular systems checks and refuelings, no more forcing her to eek out one last trip so we wouldn't get stranded in the Vortex. Told her that without her I'd be an especially eccentric maths professor with an unfair advantage in obtaining tenure. Aaand I said I'd find her new parts for a change, instead of making do with whatever I find marked down at the next galactic bazaar we stumble into."

 

Jack smiled. "Good."

 

"Yep." The Doctor bounced again, but his smile slipped a little. "Is that what you meant about taking better care of her?"

 

Jack shrugged. "Something like that."

 

"And you, Jack?" The Doctor set his teacup aside. He took a deep breath; his expression was strangely open for once, and Jack could see something happening behind his eyes, some decision being made. "How can I take better care of you?"

 

Jack eyed him. He had a tiny blob of jam at the corner of his mouth.

 

Jack decided to take a chance.

 

"I don't want you to take care of me," he said, and stepped forward to grasp the Doctor's hand. "I want us to take care of each other. Starting with this." He leaned in and delicately licked the blob of jam off the corner of the Doctor's mouth before kissing him and pressing him up against the counter. The Doctor stiffened and then, to Jack's surprise, melted. His hands slid around Jack's waist beneath his great coat.

 

"Jack," he whispered against Jack's lips.

 

"Shh," Jack murmured, because they were barely touching and he was hard as a rock and he didn't want to hear the Doctor tell him to stop. Though that didn't seem to be the Doctor's intention at all, actually. His hands were just as eager on Jack's belt and fly as Jack's were on his, and when Jack reached inside, wrapped his hand around the Doctor's length, and squeezed, the Doctor was only half a beat behind. Three mutual strokes and Jack was gasping, his free hand scrabbling blindly at the Doctor's wrist to stop him.

 

"No, not like this," he said breathlessly.

 

"What? How?" The Doctor's hair was mussed, standing on end, his collar askew. Jack shoved aside the urge to kiss and lick every inch of his neck, to seek out all the secret spots that would reduce the Doctor to a quivering puddle of goo, and went to his knees, pulling the Doctor down with him.

 

"Here," Jack said. He yanked the Doctor's shirt out of his trousers, exposing an expanse of pale stomach. He pulled the trousers down, bent his head, and brushed his lips over the delectable dip in the Doctor's hip. The scent of musk and alien pheromones sent a jolt of white-hot heat to Jack's groin. He laved his tongue over the Doctor's hip and down, down.

 

The Doctor's long fingers twisted gently into Jack's hair. "Thought . . . thought we - were - ahh - taking care - oh, ohh - of . . . of each other."

 

"One at a time," Jack said. He licked a wide swathe up the Doctor's length, swirled his tongue around the top as though he was licking an ice cream cone. The Doctor's hips bucked. Jack smiled to himself and swallowed him down.

 

He'd been brilliant at this, once. He was a little worried he might have lost the knack, but muscle memory was a wonderful thing. He didn't have to worry about relaxing the muscles in his throat. He could concentrate on the weight of the Doctor's cock on his tongue, the soft but firm texture, the salty flavor, the smell of sex and arousal, heavy in the air, and the sounds the Doctor made: moans and low cries that sounded almost painful. Jack was swept away briefly by the certainty that no one else had ever seen the Doctor this vulnerable, this open. He was shuddering, hips thrusting under Jack's hands, and then he was coming, hands tightening in Jack's hair.

 

Jack kept up a rhythm, increasingly gentle, until the Doctor lay mostly still, only twitching every now and then. Then he slid up the length of the Doctor's body and kissed him. He expected the Doctor to flinch at this - most people did, the first time - but he didn't. He lifted his head to kiss Jack back and Jack felt a little thrill go through him. He'd always judged the Doctor to be very vanilla, but maybe he'd be more willing to try new things than Jack thought. This was the Doctor, after all - he thrived on new experiences. For once, Jack might be able to show him a thing or two.

 

Jack gave into his earlier temptation now, with the Doctor soft and pliant in the afterglow. He nuzzled him under the ear, breathing in the scent of his skin and his hair, then spent some time nibbling at his earlobe. He had a little pang then, missing the old Doctor's ears, but he quashed it. It wasn't quite like thinking of someone else during sex, but it was close.

 

He dragged his lips slowly down the Doctor's neck to his collar bone, drinking in all the little sounds the Doctor made - sweet little gasps and wordless murmurs, different from the sounds he'd made when Jack went down on him, but still sexy as hell. Jack wondered if he could come just from this, just from kissing and licking the Doctor. As it was, it'd probably only take a stroke or two from his own hand -

 

He barely had time to finish that thought before he found himself flipped over, flat on his back, the Doctor hovering over him. "One at a time," the Doctor said cheekily. He slithered down Jack's body, pulled Jack's trousers down, and took Jack's cock into his mouth - just the first couple of inches, no more - and held it there. Jack gasped and held his breath, trying not to squirm, until the Doctor's tongue moved, stroking firmly at the underside of Jack's cock. Jack breathed out in a helpless moan. The Doctor slid his mouth down a bit further and then up again. Jack's fingers scrabbled helplessly at the kitchen floor before finally twisting into the Doctor's hair. The Doctor chuckled, a low, throaty sound, and finally settled into the rhythm Jack craved.

 

Jack tried to remember to breathe, tried not to come too soon, but it wasn't long at all before he felt the first sparks of orgasm in the tips of his fingers and toes, the small of his back, the bottoms of his feet. "Doctor," he managed, but the Doctor only increased his pace.

 

The orgasm he'd had by his own hand two days ago had felt good, cleansing. Baptism by water. This one felt like baptism by fire. It ripped through him. He cried out and arched his back, lights going off behind his eyelids.

 

When he finally came back to himself he had a cramp in his foot from curling his toes in so hard. Not even that could bother him, especially when the Doctor took his foot in hand and began rubbing away the cramp, and then kept rubbing even once it was gone. He did the other foot, too, while Jack was still mostly insensible, and then lay down with his head on Jack's belly, nuzzling at the thin strip of hair leading from Jack's navel to his groin.

 

Jack's hand felt like it weighed a ton, but he managed to lift it to stroke the Doctor's hair. "Christ, Doctor, that was . . ." Jack searched for an appropriate word in his addled state. "Intense," he finished.

 

"Mmm," the Doctor said, lifting his head. "I caught the psychic backwash - tends to happen during intimate contact. I was worried about you for a bit, but the TARDIS seemed to think you were all right."

 

"Better than all right," Jack said, closing his eyes. It was the second time in four days he'd ended up lying half-conscious on the kitchen floor, he reflected, and yet the circumstances couldn't be more different. Part of him wanted to find a bed so they could do it again - and other things, too, that weren't quite so convenient on the floor - but most of him couldn't even contemplate moving.

 

He felt a flicker of amusement in his head that wasn't his own - the TARDIS. Jack smiled and stretched, careful not to dislodge the Doctor. "Does it count as a threesome if there's a telepathic ship involved?" he wondered out loud.

 

The Doctor looked first startled, then unnerved. "I'm . . . not sure. I mean, TARDISes don't really have sex - I don't think - though blimey, I'm not sure that was ever studied, it would have been considered very unseemly back on Gallifrey. Time lords having sex was bad enough, we loomed most of our children - though obviously we can and did, we just preferred to pretend otherwise." He sat up, raked a hand through his hair, and cast a suspicious glance up at the ceiling. "Think I'd rather she not go poking her nose in where it doesn't belong, though," he added pointedly.

 

"Wouldn't be the weirdest thing I've ever done," Jack said with a shrug. The truth was, he liked the idea. He wasn't quite sure why the Doctor didn't, but unless they intended to never have sex in the TARDIS again - which would be very disappointing to Jack - he was probably just going to have to get used to it.

 

"Well, we don't all have your range of experience," the Doctor said, in a tone that aimed for "dry," missed by a wide margin, and ended up at "uncertain."

 

Jack laid a hand on the Doctor's thigh. "You don't need it, either, apparently, because that was just about the most mind-blowing experience I've ever had." He sat up against the cabinets and put his arm around the Doctor's shoulders, drawing him closer. "And I want to have it again." He kissed the Doctor, then pulled back and smiled. "With or without psychic threesomes with your ship."

 

The Doctor quirked his lips. "And this is what you meant by taking care of each other?"

 

"Well, that was mostly a come-on. But it worked, didn't it?"

 

"Seems like." The Doctor kissed him lightly. "I want to do it again, too," he murmured against Jack's lips.

 

"Good," Jack said, relieved beyond measure. He pulled the Doctor closer still, until his head lay in the crook of Jack's neck. "So where to next?" he asked.

 

"I need some parts, so we should pick them up, and then . . ." The Doctor shrugged. "Thought we'd follow a mauve signal, see what happens. If you feel up to it."

 

"Right now, Doc?" Jack grinned. "I think we're up to anything."

 

_Fin._


End file.
